| 2000
Entries
In 2000 12 entries were
received for the Australian Excellence in Surveying Awards.
At a special function
hosted by the Institution and Consulting Surveyors Australia, held
at the historic Adelaide Oval on 3 November the results of the
Australian Excellence in Surveying Awards for 2000 were announced.
Mr Warren Entsch MP, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for
Industry Science and Resources and the Institution's President Mr
Malcolm McCoy presented the Awards to the deserving winners.
 The
entries demonstrated the wide range of projects that Surveyors are
involved in, covering quality land development, environmental
management, construction, resources, knowledge management,
sculptures, business anaylsis and so on, and at this time when the
Federal Government is facilitating development in the Spatial
Information Industry shows the important role Surveyors will have to
play.
The judging panel had
the usual difficult job in those entries that were Highly
Commended and the Winners
in the three categories.
Pictured on right:
The Winners of the Open Project Category from ALexander Symonds
(L-R):
Mike Burdett (Alexander Symonds), Mr Warren Entsch MP, Martin Leaker
(Alexander Symonds), Malcolm McCoy (President ISA)
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Open Project Category
Small Project Category
- *WINNER* The
"Geod" Project
Dept of Civil, Surveying & Environmental Engineering -
University of Newcastle
Student Project Category
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Open Project Category
*Highly
Commended*
Knowledge
Management for Privatisation of the Victorian Electricity Industry
Fisher Stewart Pty Ltd - Victoria
 Fisher
Stewart played a key role in the privatisation of the Victorian
electricity industry providing sophisticated spatial data and land
information related to the infrastructure and land tenure for the
sale of Victoria’s power generation facilities valued at over $10
billion.
Fisher Stewart’s
knowledge management perspective allowed crucial issues to be
identified early in the project To address the complex range of land
tenure, shared infrastructure and land management issues involving
business and statutory stakeholders Fisher Stewart created an
accurate spatial database integrated with local, legal and other
specilaist information.
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*WINNER*
Body
Zone - The Millennium Dome London
Alexander Symonds
 The
Body Zone is a special sculpture developed to showcase the
human body, and is part of the Millennium Dome overlooking
the River Thames in London. Alexander Symonds' role was to
take a small clay model, determine the full size dimensions
and then set it out on site.
While this may seem a simple task in itself, the project
required real time 3D modelling of the construction to set
out the supporting steel framework for the skin of the full
size sculpture.
 A
high precision total station coupled to a laptop computer
was chosen as the field equipment. This enabled real time
comparison of any point in space to the design model. The
high accuracy system virtually eliminated set out errors,
allowing the survey team to achieve a high order of
accuracy.
The project required not only technical innovation but
also overcoming the problems in running a project on the
other side of the world.
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Turf Management Systems - Colonial
Stadium Melbourne
G Walkem & Co.
 At
new sporting venues such as the Colonial Stadium in Melbourne,
maintenance of the playing surface is a major issue. In conjunction
with the supplier of the modular grass surface for the stadium,
Chris Watson and Graeme Walkem developed a management system,
incorporating a GIS, traditional measurement systems and asset
management. A specialised computer based survey positioning system
was developed using ESRI ArcView GIS.
 This
computer system permits users to establish the location of grass
modules, record their condition, identify critical elements such as
pipes and valves. It also incorporates the ability to set out line
marking for a number of sporting codes.
The Turf Management System has also been installed
at a major sporting venue in the USA.
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The Dune Management Plan for Casuarina Beach
Aspect North
The plan for Management of the Dunes at Casuarina
Beach was prepared as part of the development of an area adjacent to
the beach. The plan provides measures to rehabilitate native
vegetation and safeguard the stability of the dunal system. The
existing vegetation was mapped and classified, to identify native
and introduced species. In addition the fauna in the area was
identified and appropriate measures incoporated in the plan to
ensure their protection.
 The
plan will be implemented over a period of five years, taking into
account the issues such as removal of weeds, dune stability, control
pedestrian and vehicle access to the dunes and manage and maintain
restoration works in the long term. The plan demonstrates the close
involvement of surveyors with management of the natural environment,
ensuring there is a sustainable balance between development and the
coastal strip.
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The Production of 1000 sq km's of Ortho
LandInfo Rectified Imagery over Sydney
Land Info - Sinclair Knight Merz
 This
project produced a series of ortho-rectified aerial images to be
available "off the shelf" for projects and developments in
Sydney. In total an area of 1000 km² of the Sydney basin has been
covered. The result is 1 km² high resolution digital tiles,
available as 24 bit geo-referenced TIFF, as well as hardcopy and
available from the interent.
The product will be marketed under the name AUSIMAGE™.
The production of AUSIMAGE™
has utilised all of the professional surveying skills such as
surveying, photogrammetry, mapping, application development, image
analysis, data management and project management. With over 600
ground control point, and a total dataset of over 90 GB the issues
involving storage, retrieval and management of data are magnified
significantly, and required innovative solutions to be developed
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An Innovative, Spatial Approach to Backlog
Sewerage Design
Geocomp Consulting
When
planning the development of any community the impact upon the
environment is a critical issue. One of the main items that has to
be taken into account is the disposal of sewage. In many developing
countries the lack of a central sewerage system and the congestion
in many urban areas makes the effective management of waste a
difficult task.
Geocomp Consulting identified a need to produce a
software and procedural solution capable of making significant
improvements in the total process involved in providing cost
effective sewerage systems.
The system integrates the sewerage design with
digital topographic and cadastral data, together with the
maximisation of associated aspatial data. The designers are able to
incorporate design notes and digital images with the design data to
assist with an efficient design process.
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Northside Storage Tunnel Project in Sydney
Hard & Forester
 Over
the past two years a massive $451 million project to improve the
quality of Sydney's waterways has been taking place below ground
under Sydney's North Shore. The project involves the establishment
of storage tunnels to hold any overflows of the sewerage system, to
enable later processing of the sewage and prevent overflows into
Sydney's waterways.
Hard & Forester as a sub-alliance partner of the
North Shore Storage Tunnel Alliance was responsible for the survey
control and data management of some 24 kilometres of tunnels.
 The
survey team guided the tunneling machinery, 24 hours a day. Special
software was developed "ALPHANAV", to assist with the
tunneling process, and is now being marketed worldwide. Working 7
days a week, 24 hours a day in a hostile and challenging environment
demanded a high level of skill and management. As a testament to the
skills of the survey team, over a 9.7 km section where the traverse
could not be closed the misclose on breakthrough was only 55 mm
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Inneslake Estate Plan
Luke & Co Pty Ltd
 The
Inneslake Estate is a carefully planned residential
development that will comprise of in excess of 2000
residential lots. What makes this project special is the
manner of the planning and development.
It is the first fully planned and constructed,
residential community in Port Macquarie that is mindful of
and incorporates a safe and sustainable living environment
for the residents and fauna. The result is a successful
project that has been developed well ahead of its time.
The project incorporates residential lots, a golf course,
country club, motel, shops, villas, tennis and equestrian
centres, vineyard, winery, restaurant and adequate open
spaces for walking and observing the natural environment.
The role of the Surveyors has been diverse, taking the
project from initial briefs from the client to the finished
product - which is a quality development by any measure.
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PNG - Qld Gas Pipeline Project
Mapping & Hydrographic Surveys
 The
PNG-Qld Gas Pipeline project is a $3.5 billion enterprise to
deliver natural gas from the Southern Highlands in PNG
across the Torres Straight to Australia. In 1999 a $2.2
million marine survey contract was let to Teknic Lengkap of
Malaysia and Mapping & Hydrographic Surveys of Brisbane.
The survey covered some 265 km of seabed, around a number of
reef complexes.
Two specialist survey launches were used on
the survey work, which included land based surveys for
control.
 The
survey teams included nationals from PNG and the Torres
Islands who were on board the vessels whilst the survey was
being performed in their respective areas.
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Student Project
*WINNER*
Suitability of GPS
for On Time Running Analysis
Clint Joseph
  Clint’s
project involved the study of GPS with the DGPS service provided by
AUSNAV to track the location of buses for TransAdelaide. The project
examined practical issues as well as analysis of the movement of the
buses to enable more detailed planning for the efficient use of the
bus fleet
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Small Project
*WINNER*
The "Geod"
Project
Dept of Civil, Surveying & Environmental Engineering
University of Newcastle
 With
the introduction of the new Geocentric Datum of Australia and the
associated Mapping grid, it raised the issues of
An initial need for
education of the profession of surveying and, later, para-professionals
and users of GPS equipment; the development of universally
acceptable and proven software to perform transformations from one
datum to another;
a mechanism to ensure
ongoing education and training for new users of geodetic systems.
The staff involved with
the teaching of Surveying at the University of Newcastle corporately
decided to tackle these tasks, through putting in place
- An interactive and animated
PC-based tutorial package of the style which these staff have
popularised in recent years has been produced to explain all
aspects of geodetic datums and the transformation of coordinates
between them.
- A transformation program which
allows single point or multiple files of coordinates to be
transformed was commissioned and explanations of it incorporated
into the tutorial.
- Seminars have been held at various
locations throughout New South Wales and the academic staff
liaised closely with staff of the state and national bodies
responsible for the coordination of a nation-wide education
program for the introduction of GDA.
 An
animated tutorial program GEOD was developed, including the use of
animated graphics were developed to illustrate all aspects of map
projections, geodetic datums and the transformation of co-ordinates
between them.
The GEOD tutorial had to bridge the
gap between the rigorous definitions of geodetic concepts required
for tertiary students and the level of three-dimensional coordinate
knowledge of the world which the 'person-in-the-street' could be
expected to readily comprehend. At the same time, the information
presented had to be meaningful to practicing surveyors, and so a
considerable amount of thought was put into the depth of detail to
be shown on any topic area.
In the GEOD tutorial, concepts such
as the Transverse Mercator co-ordinate system had to be explained so
that non-experts could feel comfortable with using topographic maps
and GPS units. The depiction of concepts such as the geoid and a
geodetic datum presented considerable problems. Their shape and
orientation had to be exaggerated in order to be visible on a global
scale, yet the 'wrong message' about size should not be conveyed to
laypersons.
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Would
a GIS be a Viable Option for a Small Survey/Planning Business?
Annelise Peyton
 This
project was carried out to investigate whether a GIS would be a
viable option for a Surveying/Planning business, taking into account
factors such as the actual establishment costs, benefits and
associated applications that would be involved in establishing a
GIS.
Research was carried out within a
Surveying/Planning practice to test the viability of GIS. One
element considered was whether a GIS would provide a way of
Surveyors to transfer their abundance of knowledge in the field into
a new form.
The project concluded that there
appears to be an over-emphasis on the cost of establishing a GIS
within a business. While there is a set up costs it is anticipated
that the funding would be returned to a business in a short period
of time, provided appropriate training and maintenance was put in
place. The biggest impediment appeared to be the mindset of
Surveyors.
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